live frugally, but stylishly and deliciously

i realized a while ago that i could be buying my makeup on ebay. at first i was apprehensive because i have a bizarre and paranoid notion that someone will open it up and tamper with it, maybe i watch too much law and order? anyways i figured that if i browsed makeup “power sellers” who exclusively sold new, unused, sealed cosmetics, i should be ok. well, i did so and got my smashbox primer for $9 instead of the $17 in store. with shipping, it turned out to be just under $14 which doesn’t seem like a huge savings, but considering the shipping at sephora.com is more i’m still better off. i could go downtown, but what i’d pay at the dept. stores is more than what i paid to the seller and in terms of gas + lunch + the impulse buy factor, i always end up paying more for cosmetics by going and buying them in person. this is a good way to not have to buy drugstore brands and still save money.

ducked into a few different targets yesterday to pounce on the new alexander mc queen collection the first day it was out. thankfully, i wasn’t crazy about most of it but did walk away with an amazing black draped front mini for all of $30. amazing. i went on the website last night and found flats from the siegerson morrison collection on clearance for $7.49. i love target and how there is always something on sale that i can snatch up then immediately wear. seeing that my clothes and makeup shopping has been a big goose egg lately its a treat to get new shoes. at that price, i should have bought another pair of the flats in a different color, but thats a whole other habit i have to break.

We’ve been doing the bulk of our grocery shopping at Costco lately, and it’s really helped us save money on food and eating out. In that regard, dear fiance’ and I can be rather naughty. But I have to say that buying most of our dinner stuff all at once really keeps me cooking more, so we can eat up what we have. I fill in the fresh things I need at the organic market a few blocks away, and we seem to have a lot less money going out on food.

Also, I have reined back most of my clothing shopping and save the trips for things like the new Go! collections at Target. I got some great Rogan pieces today for next to nothing.